Teaching the Rebellious Your Ways

You were named after a candy
I was named after a gangster
And don’t be a sucka and take my verse off of Yelawolf’s album–thank you

Musical thoughts

This week, apart from my post on Revelation, you may have noticed a pattern. Every other post pulled the gospel out of a secular song: one metal, one rap. Today it is going to be similar.

I say similar because while today’s post began with lyrics from a semi-recently released song, and while the gospel will be presented, i am not going to try to pull the gospel from these lyrics by themselves. I would instead like to prove a point as regards the power, supremacy, and infallibility of the Word of God.

You see, the lyrics above are from rapper Machine Gun Kelly (MGK)’s diss track against Eminem titled “Rap Devil.” There are several reasons why i am not posting the link to the song this time. First, there is an insane number of expletives. Second, the song is merely the springboard for this post, not the focus. Third, the history goes back a long way and it would require me posting too many songs to tell the full story (warning: multiple expletives in the link above).

Eminem released Kamikaze unannounced on August 31, 2018, and one song on the album was directly aimed at MGK. Three days later, on Labor Day 2018, MGK responded with the music video “Rap Devil.” (Personally, this is the best style of rap; drugs, violence, and sexual escapades don’t do it for me in a rap song, but doing research and carefully crafting a song calling someone else out is genius.) Eminem responded with the single, “Killshot,” about two weeks later.

And, according to Reddit, before Eminem’s release of “Killshot,” MGK had been pulled from Yelawolf’s album. (Now though, the news is different, and given Reddit’s unhindered freedom of speech you can’t necessarily trust anything you read there.)

But, the simple fact of the matter, regardless of whether it happened or not, is that MGK said:

And don’t be a sucka and take my verse off of Yelawolf’s album–thank you.

Why did he make this statement?

Obviously, because he feared it was a legitimate possibility. The history between Eminem and MGK, at least from MGK’s point of view, is that Eminem has held him back in the past, silencing him musically.

But why would he fear payback from Eminem?

Because MGK had angered Eminem. So, of course, Eminem might think of getting him back. Eminem has the power to remove MGK from Yelawolf’s album (Yelawolf is on Eminem’s record label).

Theological thoughts

In solid Christian circles these days, holiness is preached. Meaning, of course, that at the forefront of the list, sexual immorality is a NO. And rightly so. And, in solid Christian circles, if a pastor falls into this type of sin, he is disqualified from ministry. And rightly so (at least initially [in my less than perfect opinion]).

But, it seems that if a big-name pastor falls into this sin, not only is he disqualified from ministry, but every publicly available piece of ministry he ever put out is removed from access.

Why?

To go back to MGK and Eminem briefly, the reason why MGK’s verse could potentially be removed is that Yelawolf’s album has not released yet.

But for a fallen pastor, everything he has ever put out in the past must be pulled off the internet (and if i had to guess, also pulled off the book tables at future conferences).

But in MGK and Eminem’s situation, it was a personal offense that would cause MGK’s content to be pulled down.

For a fallen pastor, he didn’t sin against the websites that had hosted all his sermon recordings. (Sure, the whole church suffers from the sin, but it wasn’t aimed against them). He didn’t sin against the conferences that promoted his books. He didn’t do anything to purposely spite another human being.

If he was indeed acting like a biblical pastor– before his fall–then all of his content would be the Word of God. All of his content would be promoting Christ. All of his content would be God speaking through him, calling people to Christ.

So why does his content have to be pulled down? Despite his moral failure, his sermons were still infinitely more edifying than any rap song ever released. Any pastors’ sermons would be; so why remove them?

If it is because he fell into moral failure, then why is any Psalm written by King David in the Scripture? God should have pulled them all from the canon. David even wrote himself in Psalm 51:4, “Against You–You alone–I have sinned.”

So why is it still in the Bible?

Because it is God’s Word.
Because God is a God of grace.
Because God used that passage ultimately ” to teach the rebellious [God’s] ways” and “declare [God’s] praise” (51:13, 15).
Because God declares the following in Isaiah 55:11,

My word that comes from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please and will prosper in what I send it to do.

God’s Word will accomplish its goals. And if a pastor who ends up falling into sin had faithfully preached God’s Word alone, removing said sermons from public availability is attempting to silence the mouth of God. Even if a pastor stumbled terribly, the Gospel is the Gospel, and if a fallen pastor had preached the Gospel, then the power of God is still present in the Gospel and able to convert sinners.

Perhaps you don’t know the Gospel of which i speak. Jesus Christ came to earth 2,000 years ago and lived a perfect life. He never cursed, stole, killed, or fornicated. In essence, His life was the exact opposite of hip-hop culture. However, despite that, He hung out with the equivalent of rap-stars or wannabe rap-stars. He loved them. The religious elite of His day called him, quite literally, “a friend of tax collectors and sinners,” sinners referring specifically to prostitutes and other sexually deviant individuals.

Then, after He lived His perfect life, He died on the cross. He was crucified. He was killed in our place because we had committed all the sins He never did. Then, three days later, He rose from the dead.

Just like He lived twice, so will you–YOLO aside. You live now, and when you are resurrected, you will either enter eternal life or eternal death. This death is known as hell. It is eternally dying. You will never stop dying. I don’t want to see you in hell at the sequel.

I plead with you to believe in Jesus. He died for you. He shed His blood for you. He offers you life. You don’t need holy water; you need His blood to cover you. Leave your life of sin and trust the grace of Jesus.